Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) possessed one of the greatest minds the world has ever known. Painter, draftsman, inventor, theorist, and teacher, he is the quintessential Renaissance genius whose contributions to fine art, literature, science, and technology are awe-inspiring.
During his life, Leonardo kept innumerable notebooks. The exact number remains unknown because it wasn't until hundreds of years after his death that the pages finally resurfaced and were printed and translated into modern Italian, French, German, and English. The work that is now known to us, however, comprises more than 7,000 pages of writings and drawings. The original pages are collected in manuscripts or codici, and housed mainly in collections throughout Europe.
Leonardo called his notebooks, "a collection without order taken from many papers which I have copied here, hoping afterward to arrange them in order, each in its place according to the subjects treated of." He died before he could complete the task, leaving the work to subsequent generations of scholars and translators. A monumental task, indeed. The vast range of subject matter and the detail of the illustrations reveal an insatiable mind in possession of extraordinary powers of observation and deduction. There is also the quality of chaos or disorganization, as much of the text in the original manuscript was written backwards (that is, from right to left), in strange dialect, or in cryptic abbreviation. What resonates, though, in a symphony of words and pictures, are the myriad elegant studies of architecture, human anatomy, painting and drawing, mechanical inventions, botany and plants, aviation, maps, and more.
This long-awaited collection culls the most fascinating of these studies and compiles them into one monumental volume that demystifies Leonardo's insights and clearly illustrates them with more than a thousand of his original sketches and exquisite line drawings. The collection is divided into three main parts: Beauty, Reason, and Art; Observation and Order; and Practical Matters. Each part is accompanied by new introductory text. The artwork has been carefully arranged so as to augment and illuminate the original words. And, Leonardo's handwritten notes and strange scribbling, which appear here as part of the artwork, are deciphered and translated. All of this serves to orient the reader and connect him or her even more deeply to the work and to the great mind of its creator.
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